Paper products such as toilet tissue, paper towels and the like are typically rolled onto cores during manufacture for both consumer and commercial use. Many dispensers use rolled products, and the rolled format has proved very useful for such applications.
Consumers tend to prefer rolled paper products that are bulky, having a large roll diameter, but not necessarily having a long roll or sheet length. On the other hand, commercial users tend to prefer rolls having a long sheet length, but other properties such as roll diameter, bulk, and thickness of the roll is only a secondary consideration. This results because commercial customers attempt to reduce the incidence of xe2x80x9crun outxe2x80x9d, in which the roll runs out prior to the time that a maintenance person is able to reload the dispensing roll.
It is therefore a goal of manufacturers to achieve a long roll length for commercial uses without sacrificing the bulky and desirable handfeel of the paper product. Typically, a sheet having a reduced caliper (i.e. reduced sheet thickness) results in a longer roll length, but does so at the expense of quality perception and bulk of the product.
A product and method of producing a product that results in a long roll (i.e. sheet) length, and a smaller roll diameter, without sacrificing sheet quality and handfeel is desirable. A towel or tissue that provides a thick feel for commercial customers, which still provides a long roll length, is very desirable.
In one aspect of the invention, a nested rolled paper product is provided, comprising an elongated sheet of rolled fibrous. Further, depressed areas are formed in the sheet of fibrous material, the depressed areas being made by drying the paper product on a drying fabric having raised and depressed portions. Typically, the depressed areas of the elongated sheet are adapted to form channels in the sheet. The channels align in registration when the elongated sheet is rolled, thereby forming a nested rolled paper product having a compact exterior rolled dimension, but a desirable bulky handfeel to consumers when the sheet is dispensed from the roll. The rolled product may include channels in the machine direction of the sheet. In many embodiments, the rolled product includes channels in the cross direction of the sheet. Depending upon the geometry employed, the rolled product may provide channels that are aligned in registration in both the machine and cross direction.
Some embodiments of the invention provide a rolled product in which the product comprises a multi-ply laminate. A two-ply laminate is commonly used, but laminates having three, four, or more plies are possible applications of the invention. The depressed areas are sometimes square shaped, but may be rectangular, oval, spherical, five-sided, six-sided, heptagonal, octagonal, or any other configuration that is capable of aligning in registration.
In one aspect of the invention, a method of making a compact rolled paper product is provided. In one method, a first step is to form an aqueous suspension comprising paper-making fibers. As a next step, the suspension is diluted to disperse paper-making fibers. The suspension of fibers is distributed on a forming wire and is dewatered to form a wet web. The wet web is transferred to a transfer wire which runs at a slower speed than the forming wire. Thus, the transfer step from the forming wire to the transfer wire imparts machine direction stretch into the sheet. The sheet is then transferred to the drying fabric. The drying fabric (or throughdrying fabric, sometimes called a xe2x80x9cTADxe2x80x9d fabric) includes raised and depressed portions. The wet web is conformed to the topology of the drying fabric. The wet web is dried to form a sheet having a mirror image of the raised and depressed areas of the sheet, forming channels in the sheet. In general, the depressed areas are aligned in machine direction in its long dimension and a cross direction perpendicular to the machine direction. The sheet is then rolled to form a rolled paper product, and the channels align in registration when the sheet is in the rolled condition, thereby forming a nested rolled paper product having a compact exterior diameter.
In some applications of the invention, a paper product formed by the process described above is provided.